A mom shares on TikTok how she copes with Christmas with her eight children – and why she and her family “don’t do Santa”.
“On Christmas Eve, each of our children has to open four presents,” Mercedes Lynn says at the beginning of her video, which has now been viewed more than 490,000 times. “They get one new book, one new outfit, and two gifts that are just fun things — or a toy, a game, something fun that they wanted.”
“On Christmas they have to open up what’s in their stocking, and at the bottom of their stocking will be a little piece of wrapping paper. And then they take that piece of wrapping paper and put it together with the present under the pine tree because everyone gets a present on Christmas morning,” she continues.
Lynn says she grew up making stocking paper, and the goal of the system was to “help keep things fair, not chaotic.”
Organizing a holiday celebration for eight children is a feat that few parents can pull off easily, but it seems that most commenters’ problem with Lynn’s approach is actually the absence of Santa Claus.
“You lost me without Santa,” writes one commenter, while another lashes out, “my kids loved the magic of Santa!!!”
Picture of Christmas gifts.
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“We did Santa when my oldest kids were little, but as they got older and we had more kids, we felt judged for trying to keep up the lies,” Lynn tells PEOPLE. “We would lie, and then we would have to lie again to cover up that lie. That put us in a bad position, and as Christians, we wanted to make sure our kids had the right focus.”
Knowing that Santa isn’t real isn’t school gossip that her kids can pass on to their friends either, Lynn says, since many of their friends’ families “feel the same way we do.”
“Since most of our kids are homeschooled, we really don’t have to worry too much about ‘ruining’ it for the other kids,” she says.
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A single gift on Christmas morning is what Lynn calls each child’s “special” gift, though she clarifies in the video, “that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s their most expensive.”
“It’s just something that means the most to them or something that they really, really wanted, you know, trying to make it special,” she explains in the video.
“Stockings and a ‘big’ gift on Christmas morning is something my kids really look forward to,” Lynn tells PEOPLE, calling the routine a “fun tradition” for her family.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education